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israeli heavy metal

Before we get too far down the rabbit hole with Hammercult’s “Steelcrusher,” let’s take a minute to appreciate the art in front of us. Take a look at that album cover. If you click on it, it’ll show full size. Have you ever seen something so masterful? That album cover, which like a certain rug tying the room together is made whole by the prominent middle finger in the middle of the image, is among the greatest iconography in heavy metal. No joke.

Orphaned Land is a heavy metal band from Israel who has spent two decades preaching the message of universal brotherhood and religious peace. That sentence in and of itself is astounding for the number of contradictions it would seem to contain. But every word of it is true, and we should all be so blessed to be so passionate about such an important message. I'm going to come out and say it: I am a person of mixed religious heritage, and I feel so incredibly privileged to have been born in a time and place where that has never been an issue. I can't what my life would have been like if that hadn't been true. It's in that spirit that I take the message of Orphaned Land so seriously. I sat down with Chen Balbus, guitarist and instrumentalist for Orphaned Land, to talk about their new album, the creation of the band's unique sound, and the brotherhood that music inspires in us all.

Orphaned Land is a band totally consumed by their message. Normally in metal, that message has a good chance of being insipid or sophomoric. We’ve seen messages that range from “CHAOS!” to “Drink until you can’t feel feelings anymore” and let’s not forget the tried and true “all organized societal institutions are crap.” As fans, it falls on us to either embrace or, more commonly, overlook any petulance and merely attempt to absorb and judge the music.

Naturally, you as the reader clicked on this article to see what I thought about the Orphaned Land album “The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR.” You probably are curious if the music is crisp, if the riffs are edgy, if the Israeli metal band can keep pace with their counterparts in the rest of the world.